Oldboy is one of
those films which I’d heard was excellent but luckily knew nothing more. About
three years ago I finally sat down and watched it. I then had to watch it the
next day as well. Since those first two watches and subsequent two or three, Oldboy has become one of my favourite
films of all time and opened up a now longstanding love affair with Korean
cinema. Beginning with Director Park Chan-wook’s other films I began to
discover incredible actors such as Song Kang-ho (The Host, Thirst, J.S.A.) which in turn lead me to discover more
fantastic Director’s like Lee Jeong-beom (TheMan from Nowhere), Chul-soo Jang (Bedevilled)
and Kim Ji-woon (I Saw the Devil, The Good, the Bad, The Weird). In
essence, Oldboy for me was a small
crack of light which opened the door to a bright world of film discovery and in
the four years since I first saw it, it remains not only one of the best Korean
movies I’ve seen but one of the best full stop.
A drunken man called Oh Dae-su (Choi Min-sik) is awaiting
collection from a Police Station. His friend arrives to take him home to his
young daughter whose birthday it is. While the friend makes a quick call from a
payphone, Dae-su disappears and isn’t heard of again for nearly fifteen years.
During those fifteen years he is locked up in a small room without an
explanation or any idea of when or if he will get out. While locked up he is
framed for his wife’s murder and his daughter is adopted in Sweden. A
decade and a half later Dae-su is released, again without explanation but is
told he has until July 5th to work out why he was locked up or his
new friend Mi-do (Kang Hye-jung) will be killed.
